French first became interested in computers when a seventh-grade teacher placed her in an advanced math class. After graduating from the Ursuline Academy (a Catholic girls' high school), she studied computer science and economics at Duke University (B.S., 1986; M.B.A., 1987). She joined Microsoft in product development in 1987 and rose to become general manager of information products. French married Bill Gates on Jan. 1, 1994. When their first child was born, in 1996, she left the company to concentrate on her family and on the couple's charitable work.
Along with her husband, Gates initiated her charitable endeavours in 1994, largely at the behest of Bill's father, William H. Gates, but also from the example of Bill's mother, a devoted philanthropist who had died earlier that year.
Their first effort, the William H. Gates Foundation, pursued global health programs as well as projects in the Pacific Northwest, where they lived. Three years later they launched the Gates Library Foundation (renamed Gates Learning Foundation in 1999) to benefit North American libraries, with a particular focus on bringing Internet technology to public libraries. Next came the Gates Millennium Scholars program (1999), which directed $1 billion toward minority study grants. The couple consolidated their charitable interests in 2000 as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, with a reported endowment of $17 billion.
In May 2006 the Gateses were awarded Spain's Prince of Asturias Award for International Cooperation. In June billionaire investor Warren Buffett, a personal friend of the couple, announced his plan to direct some $30 billion of his fortune to the Gates Foundation in the coming years.
By 2006 the foundation was by far the world's largest. Counting Buffett's pledge, its assets would total roughly $60 billion in the next 20 years. In anticipation of its growth needs, the Gates Foundation was reorganized into three divisions: global health (including nutrition), global development, and community and education causes in the United States. Through these changes, the foundation underscored its commitment to solving health problems around the world, with particular emphasis on developing treatments and vaccines for malaria, HIV/AIDS, and tuberculosis; controlling insects that transmit diseases; and developing superfoods in the fight against malnutrition.
Despite the huge endowment and the Gateses' personal wealth, the foundation funded no program single-handedly; instead, it compelled other organizations, firms, and even countries to help underwrite programs. Their collaborative approach evoked an African proverb cited by Melinda and others at the Gates Foundation: “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go with others.”